As I woke the sleep out of my eyes in the shower this morning (is my sleep, the noun, the crud, is that alive?), the hot water slowly ingraining the antithesis of slumber deep within my wellington, besides the fact of the matter that of staring at white walls and listening to the stomach rumble and coffee demons revitalizing, I couldn’t help but thinking "fuck new york." Not that I have anything against new york, quite the opposite, I love the place, but I was actually pontificating on the Rodney O & Joe Cooley album of the same moniker.

I’m perplexed to think of another album that was retrospectively made politically incorrect to the degree that "fuck new york" was. I mean, you can’t even say "fuck new york" anymore without people dropping their noses at you and staring with extreme hatred. What you gotta understand about O and Joe, at the time, though, was that this was just straight & simple retaliation, pretty much justified. This was right in the middle of the east coast west coast shit, snoop knocking down buildings along 5th avenue, and an even more so direct response to Tim Dog’s cut "Fuck Compton." Yes the same Tim Dog that Dr. Dre opined in a skit "yo step to me and let me suck your dick," and the answer was "Things that Tim Dog would say."

I think this was all coalescing in my cranium because I just read the joyous news yesterday that, apparently devoid of rumours this time, the ultramagnetic MC’s are actually back together and cutting an album. Now, I know Tim Dog was not technically a member, but if memory serves, he was in on that ultra shit, and somehow intermingled in the lexicon. Major league hat tip to Robbie over at Unkut, for directing knowledge of said events. In fact, if you’ve got a jones for things ultramag, I can’t think of a better place, his Ced Gee files are, to put it mildly, vast.

But I don’t wanna get caught up in all that just now. Back to Rodney O & Joe Cooley. I had settled my mind on them, thru the intermingled pathway of kool keith, ultramagnetic, tim dog, fuck Compton, fuck new york, then Rodney O & Joe cooley, and come back to something I’d always opined in the back room by the pool table, staring at the purple 4 ball like hamlet lasering yorrick’s not quite decrepit skull, that general jeff just got no respect.

Ok, I just did a little googling (er, yahooing) and found this interview with Rodney O. Fascinating stuff, really, you should read it. A lot of it is about how him & Joe don’t get no respect, how they were west coast pioneers, but all new york & the east coast sees, west coast wise, is snoop & dre, all valid points, and there’s some other nice nuggets of info in there, including some vanilla ice references, but NO MENTION OF GENERAL JEFF. It’s like he didn’t exist. Joe is mentioned excessively, how he’s an incredible DJ, how him & Joe, mixing it up, ain’t nobody can do it old school like that, maybe Fresh prince & DJ Jazzy Jeff, whoever else, all true, but general jeff, he was your main rapping sidekick joe, for, whut 3, 4 albums? More? Before fuck new york and the hitmen and pookie duke, general jeff was the man! He was there for "let’s do it like this," he was there for "everlasting bass" he was there for you & joe, he had his new edition reminiscent leather general hat on front and center for every album, up until you fired him, he left, he died, I have no idea, so not only do you NOT include his name in the title of the group, you never mention him after the fact, it’s as if he didn’t exist. After he’s gone, you just get Joe to rap (a painful, heartbreaking, but funny, and oddly entertaining venture). When you bring in Pookie Duke to be Jeff’s replacement, you have more respect for POOKIE DUKE and thus change the name of the temporary group to the hitmen, cognizant that no one else would just be the other rapper, rapping roughly half the album, with NO MENTION in the name of the group. I still can’t figure it out.

General Jeff, where are you? How did you master the art of egolessness to such the degree that you were allowed to disappear completely from the rap landscape of which you helped create? Did you really exist? Were you some kind of casper friendly ghost that emitted from the 808 kick drums once the studio session started, a silk screened effigy made up by underground automatons with corporate dreams? Are you sitting in an apartment in Albuquerque doing bong rips with Russell White? I need to figure this out.

OK, after more yahooing, I found Russell white. He’s not on the green couch with the fold out bed and cheeto bags lying around everywhere inhaling chronic smoke with General Jeff (phew). He’s a happily married high school coach father of two in Palm Springs California. No wonder I couldn’t find him for a few years. He was hiding from creditors after his last cut from the 49ers in 96, 80K in debt and contemplating his fall from grace. More than ten years after not taking the cash and instead finishing his degree he doesn’t regret a thing, is back on good financial ground and happy doing what he loves and with people he loves. Good for him.

That still leaves general jeff in the dimly lit cheeto bong room. Please help. Don’t send money, send info. Jeff, where are you? We want to help. We have fruits and vegetables. Put down the cheetos. Come to the light. Jeff? General?

Wow, the lakes got beat UP last nite. Raja bell, whutta dummy, but heat of the moment can be a yelping kitten, difficult to ignore and more ignominious to avoid slapping. Honestly, last nite was the first in this series that I watched more than 15-20 minutes, engrossed as I’ve been with the clippers and this entity called my life which constantly interferes in my vegging out like a slice of lasagne in front of the television. Anyway, the lakes looked like shit, if you ask me, boris diaw cut em up like sam the butcher on the 4th of July, Alice was in the walk-in fridgerator with her panties down waiting for the bacon. Nash actually looked like the mvp, kinda I guess, although I’m not buying that bridge in Madison county. Lakes definitely in dangerville robinson now, though, they’ve gotta be thinking the following: drop this next one at staples and we’re stuck in the desert for a game 7, you know kwame’s thinking about it (when he’s not contemplating sitting in prison on some rape charge, happy that at least he’s 7 feet tall and the 380 poound Puerto Rican named slappy can’t reach his asshole without stiletto pumps and a footstool), you know lamar odom’s thinking about it, and you damn sure know that kobe’s thinking about it, but that’s a good thing. If him and devean george (who?) can calm down the troops and make them understand to treat it like just any other game but most definitely NOT any other game, that they have to execute, follow the zen yoda’s philosophies, and heed their inner Schwartz, they might just get out of this mess and give la la land the downtown hoopla it so desperately craves.

Or maybe they’ll just choke it away and the clips will have to jump on a plane next week after all. That’s aight, I heard the dry night air is great for the skin (exfoliate!) and cactus juice right out the shoot, not any longer a 1982 flashback underground fad, but now a modernistic secret samadai source of biofeedback laced nutrients, is to the esophagus as ambrosia is to Zeus. I read it, like, in a Dr. Phil book or some shit.

clipperblog. How did I never find this before? Well worth checking out.

Aaahhh. The clips are in the 2nd round. And, dream sequence, as mentioned before, cue ragnarok, yes I just quoted myself, it looks like it’s gonna be verse the lakes, an all staples extravaganza.

So not only do we get to exorcise the get out of the first round demons (and harsh and stabbing pitchforks full of heathenistic flames they were), but we get the opportunity to show up big brother on the national stage with a berth in the conference finals on the line.

Ooohhh wheeee. Sounds good to me G.

And how bout Reggie Evans grabbing Kaman in the nuts and squeezing? Wow. And no suspension. His own teammates were admitting that they were giving him shit about it. Kaman, the class act from space, shoved the mofo down but didn’t punch him in the face like us normal humans would have done. Thank Allah for stun-set phasers. (Gracias, Yahweh).

"There's not a team out there, matchup-wise, that we don't think we can beat. I'm not saying that we're the favorites or we're better than Detroit or San Antonio, whoever the elite teams have been. But, you know, if they don't come to play well, I think we can beat those kind of teams

"And that's a good thing. That's a great feeling."

And ya know what? He’s right. He is correct, sir. The clips are two deep at the point, with Sam and Shaun (the extremes of experience + balls and youth + skill, a very very special skill, shaun Livingston, I’m telling you, folks, NOBODY in the game right now, with the possible exception of Nash, and Shaun may have even better of an innate knack for it, sees the court like this kid), they got two excellent bigs in Kaman and Brand, who can bang with anyone, they got Maggette the slashing scorer, off the bench no less, they have Ross the lockdown defender, they have vladdie the big forward that can knock down 3’s and has been surprisingly adept at running and playing team defense, they got a money shot 2 guard in Cat Mobley, I mean where is the weak spot? 8-deep, and no weak spot, advantages everywhere, matchups from hell for who dareth faceth. There is no one they cannot beat.

And yes, I am wondering if this is all a dream and I’m about to wake up in Donald Sterling’s basement with a rubber ball in my mouth, Sam Cassell gesticulating and cradling imaginary elephant scrotum in the corner, frocked in a leather gimp suit, chained to the ceiling and cackling with insane glee. brrrrr.

ok, that was kinda an indordinate amount of ball references. I'm taking a cue from TV funhouse Conan O'Brien interviews or some shit. Left field, it wants its kool-aid back.